Cabrera didn’t finish lower than second on any of the 28 ballots cast by BBWAA members for the AL award. Trout was second on 21 ballots and third on one, with third-place finisher Adrian Beltre collecting the other second-place vote.

The AL award had been widely debated between baseball’s new-wave and old-school thinkers. Those who favor sabermetrics (or cybermetrics as NL Manager of the Year Davey Johnson calls them) sided with Trout largely because of his decisive edge over Cabrera in WAR (Wins Above Replacement), a stat used to measure a player’s overall productivity.

Traditionalists opted for Cabrera because his team reached the playoffs and he became the first player in 45 years to win the Triple Crown. He led the AL with 44 homers, 139 RBIs and a .330 batting average.

Trout, who was a unanimous choice for AL Rookie of the Year earlier in the week, became the first player in history to hit 30 homers, steal at least 45 bases and score at least 125 runs in a season. He also finished runner-up in the batting race, at .326. Trout, however, cooled off in September and his Los Angeles Angels failed to make the playoffs even though they won one more game than Cabrera’s Detroit Tigers.

Posey, at 25, became the youngest MVP since Ryne Sandberg in 1984 and the first catcher to win the honor since Johnny Bench in 1972. Posey also is the first player to win MVP and Comeback Player of the Year in the same season, though the comeback award has not been around for many years. Posey also won the NL batting title with a .326 average while hitting 24 homers and driving in 103 runs.

Cabrera, 29, became the first Venezuelan-born player to win an MVP and the second Tigers player in a row following Justin Verlander.

Other voting notables:

— St. Louis Cardinals catcher Yadier Molina, with two, was the only player in the NL to receive a first-place vote besides Posey and Braun, who had three. Molina finished in fourth place, four points behind Pittsburgh Pirates center fielder Andrew McCutchen.

— Voters did not hold Braun’s overturned suspension for using performance enhancing drugs against him. He was named on every ballot.

— Angels slugger Albert Pujols finished 17th in the AL voting, the first time in his 12-year career that he finished outside the top 10.

— New York Yankees shortstop Derek Jeter came within one spot of picking up a $2 million salary increase on his 2014 option. He needed to finish in the top six to earn the bonus but placed a distant seventh.

— Verlander finished eighth and Prince Fielder ninth to give the Tigers three players in the top 10. The Yankees, with Robinson Cano (fourth) and Jeter, and the Rangers with Beltre and Josh Hamilton (fifth), also had two players in the top 10. In the National League, the Brewers with Braun and Aramis Ramirez (ninth) were the only club with two top-10 finishers.